Monthly Archives: May 2017

Saturday is the final of arguably the finest football tournament in the world. Real Madrid take on Juventus in Cardiff. Its been a cracking tournament and the final is between arguably the best two teams in Europe at the moment. Perhaps the mighty Bayern Munich should be here instead of Real but they are certainly the top 3 teams in Europe now.

Madrid, I think were lucky to get past Bayern. A couple of sending offs really did help them. They were fortunate to have killed the tie off with Atletico at home too as they were heavily under pressure in the return leg. Madrid have been free scoring but they haven't come across this Juventus team who are really tight. The only conceded two in the group stages and shut out Barcelona over 2 legs. Barcelona didn't even look like scoring in the whole 90 minutes. They only conceded one to Monaco in the knock out stages.

In terms of who is going to win this, you could make an argument either way. I do prefer Juventus though. They are hard to break down and Dybala is one of the best strikers I've seen this year. Ronaldo getting a little old now and not banging them in as much as he has done in previous seasons. I'd price this up as a coin toss type of bet. Any of the 3 results wouldn't be a surprise.

Looking at the way Madrid are slight favourites, it makes sense to oppose them for the value. On the Asian Handicap you can get Juventus +0 at 2.07. Draw no bet which is the same is only 1.9.

At bet365 they have the bore draw offer too. I can see this being a tight game with a single goal deciding it. Juventus 1-0 is 8.0 whereas Madrid 1-0 is 7.5. If you bet on these and it ends 0-0 you get your money back.

Last weekend was a great one for punters. All the favourites won. Arsenal were a little iffy in play with the man being sent off but came through comfortably in the end. Chelsea went behind to Sunderland before battering them.

This weekend is the FA Cup. I quite like the look of Chelsea. They've been the better team all season and even though Arsenal went on a little run of 5 straight wins to narrowly miss out on 4th, they've not been great at all season. They were lucky to beat City in the last round whereas Chelsea, even though outclassed managed to win. Conte got his tactics spot on.

The price at the moment for Chelsea is great at 1.83. I was expecting more like 1.7. I can't see that price lasting.

At the moment, Paddypower and Bet Victor both have 1.83. However, may as well bet at Paddypower as you get paid out straight away if Chelsea go 2 up. Doesn't happen very often that a team goes two up and doesn't win so the insurance isn't as good as it sounds but it will stop you having to cash out if Chelsea go 2-0 up, Arsenal get back to 2-1 and Chelsea are hanging on at the end. Unlikely though but may as well have the insurance.

2016 turned out to be the big year of political shocks, first Brexit, then Trump. The conclusion was that politics was too unpredictable. Thats not really true though. If you look at the polls, both events were within the margin of error. A few did predict them both.

In 2017, the polls seems to be a lot better or at the least the races a lot wider apart so that polling errors won't make a difference. In the French election, after Macron and Le Penn were confirmed at the final 2, the odds on a Macron win were a massive 1.14. That might not seem like a lot but when polls put both Macron 20 points ahead in a head to head, the true odds should be something like 1.01.

A similar thing is happening with the UK general election. The Tories are in some polls 20 points ahead. With the first past the post system and safe seats it looks like its going to be a landslide Tory majority. The Sunday Express are saying that “May to smash Maggie record”. A Tory win is almost all but certain.

So what are the odds on this? 1.02, 1.03? Looking on Betfair, its actually 1.07.

That a cracking price. However, there is an even better bet. If you look at the odds for most seats, its 1.04 for Tories to just win the most seats. Thats almost half the odds but is it half as likely?

Before parliament was dissolved, the seats looks like this

Party

Seats

Conservative

330

Labour

229

Liberal Democrat

9

Democratic Unionist

8

Scottish National

54

Independent

4

Sinn Féin

4

Plaid Cymru

3

Social Democratic & Labour Party

3

Ulster Unionist Party

2

UK Independence Party

1

Green

1

Vacant

1

Speaker

1

Total number of seats

650

Working Government Majority

17

For the Tories to lose the most seats bet, Labour would have to win 51 seats at the expense of the Tories. That's impossible given the current situation. You could maybe see a possibility for a hung parliament, with all the marginals going to Labour or the Lib Dems, the 1.07 is safe but you can see some risk. Maybe a terror attack and the government deal really badly with it, could cause a shift on polling day. The difference in the two bets is absolutely huge though. The “Most seats bets” is certain whereas the “Conservative Majority” bet is highly likely but you could see some circumstances where it may fail to win.

So if you want to make money out of the election, the smart money is on the Tory Most seats. The best price currently is at Betfred which gives a 1.04 price for Most Seats.

I don't know the limits there but if you want to take a slightly smaller price, you can pretty much put what you want on at Betfair Exchange. At the moment, there is about £10,000 that can be bet at 1.04. That'd be a nice £400 profit minus the 5% commission. Net profit £380. Thats much better than money sat in a bank. Obviously there is some risk there but as explained the chances of it happening are slim to none*.

I've taken the wager myself. Thats all my betting bank on the Tory Most seats. Come June 8th, that will be be a winner. Tories may not get a majority but they'll not lose 51 seats to the Labour Party.

* Shocks do happen, do not bet what you cannot afford to lose. When the fun stops, STOP.